


hardly knew ye

by alea_archivist (the_aleator)



Series: A Mere Appendix [3]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Epic Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, No Beta, PTSD, Post-Canon, War is hell, Whump, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22790971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_aleator/pseuds/alea_archivist
Summary: The Great War swallowed up many men, but not John Watson. Not if Sherlock Holmes has anything to do with it.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Series: A Mere Appendix [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1636375
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23
Collections: Watson's Woes JWP Entries: 2013





	hardly knew ye

“We’ve nothing, Mr. Holmes.” Lestrade’s reedy voice over the telephone tells him. “No word at all of the Doctor.” Holmes scowls, well aware that Lestrade cannot see him, and well aware that the little man knows his ire.

“My brother informs me that no news was to be had of him in France, nor of whether he has returned to England.” Holmes is aware that he clenches the telephone in one fist far too tightly, and eases his grip, as he stares at Mycroft’s office door. This was meant to be their retirement to the Downs together, and Holmes is keenly cognizant of the irony that he is the only one retired, and certainly not enjoying it.

“No news is good news, or so they tell me.” Lestrade sighs, and continues, a well-worn grief sounding in his voice. “I’ve alerted as much of the police force as I can, and many pairs of eyes shall be looking for him.” Holmes resists a snort at this, for his one pair of eyes has been better than all of Scotland Yard’s for many years, and that fact has not changed, whether or not it is the reign of King George rather than Queen Victoria.

He eyes Mycroft’s secretary with something of steel in his eyes, and prepares to ring off, for Lestrade has no news, and neither has Mycroft. He hears a soft clearing of throat over the line.

“Mr. Holmes? Are you still there?” Lestrade calls, and Holmes sighs, which as good an acknowledgement as the little man is bound to get these days. “We will find him.” The little man promises solemnly “Do take care of yourself, Mr. H—” Holmes rings off with a clang, and throws himself precipitously from his brother’s office, for he has work to do.

Baker Street has become not so much a remembrance of his working career as a memorial to his Boswell, and Holmes draws nearer and nearer to it with every step. He has not spent much time in Sussex of late, preferring to badger Mycroft at his offices as he has just done.

But Baker Street calls, and he travels the familiar street with a longing grief, wishing that an uneven gait trod beside him. To his surprise, he finds a man lingering near the lamppost of 221, and gives a snort of derision. Fame draws people the way decaying flesh draw maggots, and Holmes has no desire to encounter one of his devotees.

But he pauses, for this is no spectacle seeker or enthusiast, but resembles more one of the beggars that sleeps in Trafalgar Square, begging for coin.

He draws near to the beggar, older but still keen eyes noting the Army uniform, worn but still well-kept, the lame leg, and the empty sleeve, pinned in a graceful arc next to the medals on his breast.

He thinks that he has seen something of Watson in the man, perhaps something about the set of the shoulders or the shape of the eyes but a large scar runs diagonally from brow to chin, from a shrapnel wound in a bomb blast no doubt, and some six months healed. The hair is limp and white, with a heaviness of wrinkling near the eyes, and thin droops of skin where jowls might have been.

He realizes that he has been staring only as the beggar says

“Do I know you, sir?” Even the voice is strange, gravelly and with only a hint of the smoothness that it might have once had. Holmes hesitates, then answers

“No. But I should have thought you were someone that I knew once.” Holmes turns to go, and takes two paces closer to Baker Street. Halted, as a shiver ran through his very bones.

_He couldn’t be sure._

**“** Only, I think that I knew this place once. Long ago perhaps.” The beggar says slowly, taking a step forward as he leans on his crutch. “It is faint in my memory, that is, what little remains of my memory.”

“You are only newly returned from France, I see.” The irony of that sentence bites at Holmes, and he curls one hand into a fist, hidden beneath his sleeve.

“Yes – how did you know?” The other man says curiously, and his blue eyes light up. It is a simple deduction, one which even Lestrade might have made, and Holmes dismisses the question with a wave of his long, thin fingers.

“May I ask your name?” Holmes enquires, leaning forward on his feet to peer more closely at the eyes, a remarkably striking shade of blue.

“I cannot say, sir.” The beggar looks ashamed, and draws his uniform around his thin shoulders, lopsided and baggy. “It was the blow to the head that did it, and I am afraid I cannot recall who I am or who I was.” His words linger in the street, as Holmes lunges a pace, and the beggar recoils, with a trace of fear in his face.

“You cannot recall?” Holmes says eagerly, too eagerly, for the beggar begins to retreat, wheeling on his crutch and taking halting steps. It is a matter of a few swift strides overtake him, and to stand in front of him once more. “No recollection whatsoever of this place? Of me?” The hope in his chest begins to crush him, and he surveys the other man’s face with all the desperate hope of a bereaved friend.

There is terror in the other man’s eyes, and he back wheels, and with a precarious balance, topples on his crutch to the paving stones. He groans weakly, and shudders, covering his face with one large hand. Holmes is distantly aware that he is fighting back moisture in his eyes, as he crouches to the pavement, ignoring the protests from his ill-used joints.

He _recognizes_ that hand, that hand which he knew so well, from the well-formed fingernails to the slim knuckle joints and the broadness of the palm. He had stared at those hands (for there had been two in those days, and his soul roared in grief) as they poured tea, or held the paper, sewed up his own unwilling and reluctant flesh.

Funny how he should recognize the hands and not the eyes, but that was the way of it, he supposes, for Watson had always been a man of his hands. But still the other man cowered on the ground, crutch lying forgotten next to him.

“Please sir, I beg you, let me be. I shall leave this place, if only you will not hurt me.” Watson’s voice, so ill-used, shakes in terror, and Holmes draws his shoulders together. Surely, Watson could not remember him, and had passed into England as a returning soldier, without name or rank, just one of many returning from the war, swallowed up by the dark earth of France.

But he had remembered, at least, Baker Street. He commands his voice to calm, and says as gently as he may

“Do you not know me? For I am Sherlock Holmes, and I have been seeking you, all the breadth of England and the continent.” He sounds distant, and wonders that the other man’s face peers out from beneath his hands. “I believe you are my friend, long-lost to the war.”

The play of emotions on the other man’s face begins with confusion, cycles through dismay, and settles on a reluctant, half-hope.

That face seeks his own, searching for something of certainty, and he lets something of his turmoil show.

“Have I been lost long?” A reluctant voice queries him.

“Long enough.” Holmes allows, and says more softly “It is time to come home again.”

He drew out a hand, to the other man. To his Watson.

“I hardly knew you, Watson, but I have not forgotten you.” Those blue eyes threatened tears. “I should not have stopped looking, my friend. Never.” He said, and it was the promise of eternity and forever, and love.

**Author's Note:**

> A second fic inspired by Watson's Woes JWP#6 in 2013, the Wilfred Owen poem 'Futility." The title comes from 'Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye.' If you don't know Benjamin Luxon's version, please go listen to it.


End file.
